Injured While Eating? It Could Happen to You

But it might surprise you to know there are actually injuries people obtain from eating which land them in the emergency room.

Some eating injuries even end up fatal.

And no, we’re not talking about allergic reactions either (although those can be a serious and fatal tragedy too).

From hot pepper eating contests to undealt with infections and burns, check out four surprising injuries that can occur while eating.

Beware of the Grill

Nothing says summer like busting out the backyard grill and cooking up some burgers or chicken.

Complete with veggie kabobs and you have a keto friendly meal.

And part of owning a grill is maintaining and keeping it clean with a wire brush… but as it turns out cleaning your grill with a wire brush can be a dangerous thing.

You might think it’s rare a person would be eating a burger and end up swallowing a wire from a brush, right?

Well as it turns out, according to the Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Journal, nearly 1700 people ended up in the ER after swallowing a wire brush from a grill in just 12 years!

Apparently while cleaning a grill a tiny bristle can fall off and stick to the grates of the grill and end up embedded in your burger.

And once you eat the burger, the wire causes havoc in your body.

Live Strong reported:

“One little bristle unrecognized could get lodged in various areas of the body, whether in the throat, tonsil or neck region,” said study co-author David Chang, M.D., associate professor at the MU School of Medicine, in a release. Alternatively, the bristle could get stuck further downstream in places like the esophagus, stomach or the intestine.”

Skip the drama and use a non-wire brush to clean your grill.

Smokin’ Hot Peppers!

Maybe you like hot food. Or maybe you accepted a dare to try the hottest pepper ever in an attempt to impress your friends.

But before you decide to get into a pepper eating contest and pound back beasts like the Carolina Reaper, you might want to be prepared.

There’s a reason The Guinness Book of World Records named the Carolina Pepper the hottest pepper in the world in 2017.

They’re hot.

Really hot.

And when a 34-year-old guy tried pounding back these peppers – he ended up in the ER with something known as the “thunderclap” headache due to the severity of how quickly and strongly the headache attacks the body.

Healthfully reported:

“While doctors didn’t find any bleeding, they did see that the vessels supplying blood to the brain were narrowed. The diagnosis? Reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome, or RCVS, likely caused by the peppers.

Capsaicin, the key ingredient in the pepper, is a vasoactive substance, so it could potentially narrow the blood vessels to the most important organs like the heart and brain,” explained Dr. Gunasekaran.

As with most cases of RCVS, the pepper-eating man’s symptoms resolved on their own within a few days, and subsequent brain-imaging scans showed that his blood vessels had returned to normal. The takeaway for doctors (according to the report’s authors): RCVS should be considered for patients who experience intense headaches after eating hot peppers.”

Think a headache is not a big deal?

According to The Mayo Clinic, Thunderclap headache symptoms peak within 60 seconds and cause everything from nausea and vomiting to fever and seizures.

If you want to take the hot eating pepper challenge, just know what you are up against!

And use milk as a chaser, it should go without saying but water will only make the burn worse!

A Scorched Mouth

Remember when mom always told you to “blow on your food” to cool it down before taking a bite?

She was right.

And this is something we all know – hot coffee and hot food can burn our mouth so we should wait until it cools down.

But as it turns out you can actually get second-degree burns to the roof of your mouth from ingesting hot food.

Self Magazine reported:

“If you drink a hot coffee and quickly spit it out, it’s probably more likely that you’ll get a first-degree burn, Susan L. Besser, M.D., a primary-care physician at Mercy Medical Center, tells SELF. But if you bite into something with scalding hot cheese, which really holds heat and can stick to the roof of your mouth, you’re probably going to get a second-degree burn, she says.”

We get that you might be hungry, but no piece of steaming hot pizza is worth second-degree burns in your mouth.

Watch Your Teeth

Depending on what dental work you’ve had done, your teeth can be vulnerable. If you have a cap or filling it can become lose while eating hard foods.

And don’t think you can neglect tooth pain for too long.

If you allow bacteria to continue to invade a tooth, you might not only lose your tooth for good, but this infection can spread to other teeth and cause many more problems.

Even more terrifying, as Men’s Health previously reported, a man with a tooth infection was left untreated and the tooth infection spread to the bloodstream causing his death.

Make sure you are seeing your dentist at least once (preferably twice) a year, and be mindful when eating hard foods if you’d had massive dental work.

And while preparing food, don’t use your teeth to open up packages and labels, you’re just asking for trouble.

Eating is typically a safe experience and these stories may sound whacky, but they can happen.